philippesaner

[philippesaner]

...why am I only hearing about this now?

Seems like the kind of thing that should've been front and center in the horse-race coverage.

[philippesaner]

I don't know whether Harris could've won by moving to the left, or whether it would've helped her to be "less woke".

But one thing seems pretty clear. Centrism doesn't work anymore. Moderate Republicans are not a gettable group of voters.

I know it's axe-grinding season and all but it's still wild to watch the Substack crowd swear with rotation-of-the-earth level certainty that Harris lost because she ran too far to the left and voters punished her for that and everyone here is saying the exact opposite.

[philippesaner]

What I find hard to believe is not that those programs exist, but that they succeed and then some. Over-succeed, to the point that white people are genuinely disadvantaged.

I have only a statistician's-eye view of the US, but from where I'm sitting it looks like white people (and Asians) still do better almost everywhere I look. Especially when dealing with power, as a welfare applicant must.

Still, it's not impossible. University applications can be genuinely reverse-racist. If there's solid evidence that welfare applications are too, I want to see it.

There's a whole right-wing media machine that loves anti-white discrimination stories, and not everyone associated with it is stupid. Maybe someone from that side of the media has compiled the evidence? Some blogger in Scott Alexander's orbit, maybe?

If evidence that it's actually true is not available, I'm also interested in evidence that it's widely believed. Belief can explain a lot, even if it's untrue or uncertainly true. And widespread perception of anti-white discrimination is a lot easier for me to buy than widespread practice of it.

It's obvious that some folks believe it; I'm talking to one. But obviously you're not the avatar for "the lower class of whites". I have no way of telling how many you speak for.

It's not true, Issac is just a grievance monster.

I don't know exactly what a grievance monster is, but in my experience @isaacsapphire seems like an intelligent person who has actual reasons for their beliefs.

So I believe there are some reasons here, and I'd like to hear them. Even if it's not true - which, to be honest, seems likely to me - it's probably not based on nothing.

[philippesaner]

The fact that Team Blue has almost hegemonic control over education and journalism in the States is probably part of the problem. When the enemy controls the tools to understand reality, understanding of reality becomes a tool of the enemy. You become ideologically Anti-Fact.

Once you're Anti-Fact, what is there to stop you from heading off to Cloud Cuckooland politically? And once you're there, how can you ever hope to recruit the kind of people who'd be able and willing to lead you back to reality?

Yeah this is feeling very 2004

[philippesaner]

So the source isn't even "trust me bro", it's one level removed from that? You believe it because some people told you, and you want me to believe it because you're telling me that some people told you?

You realize how weak that is, right?

It's not true, Issac is just a grievance monster.

I don't know exactly what a grievance monster is, but in my experience @isaacsapphire seems like an intelligent person who has actual reasons for their beliefs.

So I believe there are some reasons here, and I'd like to hear them. Even if it's not true - which, to be honest, seems likely to me - it's probably not based on nothing.

[philippesaner]

I think you're misunderstanding people's complaints. They don't care that the story is being hostile to some fictional guy. They care that the setting and story have been set up so that trying to live too long turns you into a bone-eating manticore.

Think about the stories that dress women in improbably sexy outfits, then provide complex lore justifications for those outfits. When someone complains about the outfits, they don't actually care about the lore justifications.

[philippesaner]

It's not true, Issac is just a grievance monster.

I don't know exactly what a grievance monster is, but in my experience @isaacsapphire seems like an intelligent person who has actual reasons for their beliefs.

So I believe there are some reasons here, and I'd like to hear them. Even if it's not true - which, to be honest, seems likely to me - it's probably not based on nothing.

[philippesaner]

Tamed by who?

californians are a backwards and uncivilised people unfit for self rule

[philippesaner]

You really should care what a politician spews. I don't like hearing voters called garbage either, but there's a huge difference in the level of the rhetoric. And in the level of of the nepotism, the corruption, etc.

You should especially care when a politician declares that elections are only fair when they win them. That way lies actual-factual fascism. I know the word's overused, but what else can you call it when a party wants to abolish democracy?

But let's put all that aside for now, because I don't think it's the main point. I think the bit at the start of the post, how there's an open secret that the welfare system is discriminating against native-born white people. If true, that would justify a lot that currently seems unjustifiable.

So...is it true? Do you have any evidence to show me?

I'm not American, so the fact that I've never seen it happening doesn't mean much. But it sounds suspect, frankly, and I'm not just going to take your word for it.

Feeling generally demoralized and lowkey hopeless about the election; we’ve been doing this since 2016 and it’s starting to feel like Groundhog Day.

Donald Trump probably ran for president as a PR stunt. His whole thing feels like a joke that stopped being funny before the 2016 primaries were over.

The Democrats appear to have been phoning it in, flopping between halfhearted attempts to get the Obama energy back with a woman this time, and flinging whoever is closest at hand up and declaring that Trump is an existential threat so you gotta shut up and vote for whatever reheated leftovers they dragged out, and then the combination of both.

Both have coalitions of both perfectly cromulent normies and batfuck wannabe genocidaires who want to violently repress some portion of the population. Who knows how that’s gonna pan out; might be nothing, might be horrifying, I honestly don’t know if either coalition is more tilted towards horrifying in numbers or inclination.

Whether either ticket is capable of leading the world hegemon through a war or other major crisis is also unclear; Trump’s old and clearly not what he once was, and that’s assuming he was ever up to the task. He didn’t perform well during the Covid crisis imo, which leaves me doubtful that the Trump of 2025 will be able to navigate some new crisis well. Kamala is a social climber lawyer who has transparently gotten this far in large part because of her gender and ethnic heritage but at least she probably has a few good years left in her. Neither of them are stupid but neither of them really seem like the right person to lead the country through the crises that are inevitably coming up in the next four years.

The VPs both seem potentially more capable but also kinda wildcards, especially Vance who appears to have been revealed as a consummate suck-up, but his relationship with Thiel is promising to me rather than threatening and his mixed race marriage and children mean that he personally is bought in to a multiracial society. Walz seems fine and fairly competent, his background in education is nice. Neither are silver spoons, both have real life experience and some kind of military experience, which is good. I would actually be engaged and having to make a real decision if this was a legit Vance vs Walz race.

I don’t live in a swing state so my opinion is irrelevant though.

[philippesaner]

Palestine really is fucked now, isn't it?

[philippesaner]

And now it looks like he's won. The popular vote, even!

Where is this coming from? The assassination attempts? Elon Musk? The Israeli war?

Maybe it's Kamala. Maybe people just don't like her. That was Hillary's main problem, after all...

How is it that Trump is still polling well, when all the raucous enthusiasm that he once inspired seems to be gone?

His rallies are half-empty and sad now. His online nutcases are far less numerous and far less loud. The people he once handpicked for top jobs are publicly bashing him. Even the Nazis have turned on him.

But somehow, he's still polling well. How?

[philippesaner]

Clear at this point that the pollsters were right, the race really was dead even. No clue who's gonna win now.

Who the heck supports Trump in 2024, but didn't in 2020? He seems weaker in every way.

How is it that Trump is still polling well, when all the raucous enthusiasm that he once inspired seems to be gone?

His rallies are half-empty and sad now. His online nutcases are far less numerous and far less loud. The people he once handpicked for top jobs are publicly bashing him. Even the Nazis have turned on him.

But somehow, he's still polling well. How?

[philippesaner]

It honestly boggles my mind that you can look at these candidates, and these parties, and feel that they're comparable.

Practically everything out of Trump's mouth is horrific, and the Republican party barely seems to function on even the most basic levels. High-level jobs are being handed out to people with zero qualifications other than bloodline, and half of Trump's old cabinet is now condemning him.

The Democrats, meanwhile, are still a normal political party.

Feeling generally demoralized and lowkey hopeless about the election; we’ve been doing this since 2016 and it’s starting to feel like Groundhog Day.

Donald Trump probably ran for president as a PR stunt. His whole thing feels like a joke that stopped being funny before the 2016 primaries were over.

The Democrats appear to have been phoning it in, flopping between halfhearted attempts to get the Obama energy back with a woman this time, and flinging whoever is closest at hand up and declaring that Trump is an existential threat so you gotta shut up and vote for whatever reheated leftovers they dragged out, and then the combination of both.

Both have coalitions of both perfectly cromulent normies and batfuck wannabe genocidaires who want to violently repress some portion of the population. Who knows how that’s gonna pan out; might be nothing, might be horrifying, I honestly don’t know if either coalition is more tilted towards horrifying in numbers or inclination.

Whether either ticket is capable of leading the world hegemon through a war or other major crisis is also unclear; Trump’s old and clearly not what he once was, and that’s assuming he was ever up to the task. He didn’t perform well during the Covid crisis imo, which leaves me doubtful that the Trump of 2025 will be able to navigate some new crisis well. Kamala is a social climber lawyer who has transparently gotten this far in large part because of her gender and ethnic heritage but at least she probably has a few good years left in her. Neither of them are stupid but neither of them really seem like the right person to lead the country through the crises that are inevitably coming up in the next four years.

The VPs both seem potentially more capable but also kinda wildcards, especially Vance who appears to have been revealed as a consummate suck-up, but his relationship with Thiel is promising to me rather than threatening and his mixed race marriage and children mean that he personally is bought in to a multiracial society. Walz seems fine and fairly competent, his background in education is nice. Neither are silver spoons, both have real life experience and some kind of military experience, which is good. I would actually be engaged and having to make a real decision if this was a legit Vance vs Walz race.

I don’t live in a swing state so my opinion is irrelevant though.

[philippesaner]

How is it that Trump is still polling well, when all the raucous enthusiasm that he once inspired seems to be gone?

His rallies are half-empty and sad now. His online nutcases are far less numerous and far less loud. The people he once handpicked for top jobs are publicly bashing him. Even the Nazis have turned on him.

But somehow, he's still polling well. How?

[philippesaner]

Why would they be consistent?

Seems like a weird thing to expect. The objections to Catholicism aren't particularly consistent either; some people think it's perverting the word of God, while other people do not believe in God.

Anyway, I promise you, artists aren't just pretending to be worried about losing their jobs to AI. It's a very sincere, and pretty well-justified, concern for them.

The importance of attribution in the public consciousness is also very real. AMVs are almost certainly illegal on paper but very few people object to them. Because they're well-attributed.

This is now like the fourth or fifth YouTuber I've watched who has gone,

"AI is really unethical because it relies on monetizing copyrighted work without permission, and requires enormous, environmentally disruptive data centers. Anyway, that said let's spend the next hour watching high resolution streaming video of me reacting to video clips I never got permission to use, and don't forget to check out my sponsor."

Hello? HELLO?????

[philippesaner]

Whether your work is transformative is not as important as whether the derivative work serves as a substitute for the original work.

Nobody is watching HBomberGuy's video about how much James Somerton sucks as a substitute for James Somerton. But people kinda are using StableDiffusion as a substitute for the artists StableDiffusion is trained on. Here, I'll let Wikipedia and the American Supreme Court speak for me:

In evaluating the fourth factor, courts often consider two kinds of harm to the potential market for the original work. First, courts consider whether the use in question acts as a direct market substitute for the original work. In Campbell, the Supreme Court stated that "when a commercial use amounts to mere duplication of the entirety of the original, it clearly supersedes the object of the original and serves as a market replacement for it, making it likely that cognizable market harm to the original will occur". In one instance, a court ruled that this factor weighed against a defendant who had made unauthorized movie trailers for video retailers, since his trailers acted as direct substitutes for the copyright owner's official trailers.[28] Second, courts also consider whether potential market harm might exist beyond that of direct substitution, such as in the potential existence of a licensing market. This consideration has weighed against commercial copy shops that make copies of articles in course-packs for college students, when a market already existed for the licensing of course-pack copies.[29] Courts recognize that certain kinds of market harm do not negate fair use, such as when a parody or negative review impairs the market of the original work. Copyright considerations may not shield a work against adverse criticism.

I'm not exactly anti-AI, but I don't think there's any hypocrisy in HBomberGuy's perspective there.

As for actual reaction videos...yeah, many of them are just plagiarism. As HBomberGuy himself pointed out, the laws are rarely enforced. He had to dig pretty deep to find an example of an artist actually getting effective legal sanction against a plagiarist.

And the beyond the legally-important question of market harm, there's the morally-important question of honesty. The very transformativeness of AI makes it incapable of carefully attributing inspirations or citing sources or otherwise giving credit.

The general public is cool with AMVs and reaction videos and lengthy quotations of reviewed works because they make very clear who deserves credit for the original work. The way AI blends its inspirations into un-attributable soup makes many people very uncomfortable.

This is now like the fourth or fifth YouTuber I've watched who has gone,

"AI is really unethical because it relies on monetizing copyrighted work without permission, and requires enormous, environmentally disruptive data centers. Anyway, that said let's spend the next hour watching high resolution streaming video of me reacting to video clips I never got permission to use, and don't forget to check out my sponsor."

Hello? HELLO?????

[philippesaner]

No, why would I?

why are you as a man not taking estrogen, don't you wanna be a pretty boy?